Undergraduate Student Government chief justice Ryan Tung confirmed on Tuesday that a special election to fill a vacant senate position is currently scheduled to take place Sept. 10 through 12. 

Tung said in an interview with the Daily Trojan after Tuesday night’s senate meeting that the special election dates are tentative due to former senator Dakota Driemeyer’s abrupt resignation Aug. 18. 

Nine candidates are running for the vacant senate seat, Tung said. The campaign period will end Sept. 10 and voting will start after the campaign period ends. 

Tung said he hopes to increase voter engagement between students and USG on campus. A Fall 2024 special election saw 987 students vote — about 4.7% of the undergraduate population.

“This year, we’re really honing in on improving voter turnout, both at the special election and then during the general election,” Tung said. 

Tung also said each associate justice is looking forward to expanding student engagement through their projects. 

“There’s a whole bunch of different initiatives that all of our justices are taking on,” Tung said. “These passion projects are what they want to execute throughout the year that’ll hopefully expand our voter base.” 

In her presentation, vice president Emma Fallon said one of her goals for the upcoming year is to increase community involvement and engagement at USG. 

“A big emphasis for me and [president] Mikaela [Bautista] this year has been work culture,” Fallon said. “We really want to focus on making sure that people feel engaged when they’re here in USG, and that they know everyone in USG.”

Fallon said in an interview with the Daily Trojan after the meeting that she hopes to play a significant role in providing support for USG staff and senators in completing their projects. 

“A big thing I touched on [in the meeting] was USG culture and getting people to collaborate on projects, and focusing on all having the same mission and getting a lot of our platform out,” Fallon said. 

Fallon also presented her and Bautista’s new project tracker, which is live on their website and Instagram account. She said it will be updated as each project progresses.

“We’re going to attach a date every time we update it so we can encourage transparency and accountability, which was a huge part of our campaign,” Fallon said during the meeting.